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Kerry, Kerry good

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

So dark in fact, that long before the end of a hopelessly one-sided final, droves of Mayo supporters had already exited the stadium leaving great swaths of humiliation in the stands. Apart from the first quarter of an hour, this final was not even a contest. Kerry’s sheer class made it an embarrassing exhibition for the fans who endured their team’s fate.
Admittedly, Kerry were good, very good. From Diarmuid Murphy at the back to the lithe genius of Colm Cooper in attack, they produced an irrepressible team performance. Not too many observers had seen this extraordinary imbalance in their tea leaves. However, manager Jack O’Connor’s shrewd tactics transformed an eagerly awaited decided into a stroll for the Kingdom.
For much of the second half, O’Connor’s players were able to stop from time to time and smell the roses such was their overwhelming superiority. Once the ploy of lofting high balls in towards a bustling Johnny Crowley and Cooper had the Mayo defense in a panic, Kerry knew their were in business.
Not even a sweetly taken goal by Alan Dillon in the fifth minute was enough to knock Kerry off their perch. Marc O Se and Tomas O Se stormed forward from the halfback line, William Kirby and Eoin Brosnan vacuumed up every bit of possession in centerfield to create space for Declan O’Sullivan and Paul Galvin, and quite simply the Mayo rearguard didn’t know which way to look or to turn.
The rising Kerry tide of possession and points meant that losers were unable to bring the usually influential Ciaran McDonald into the game. The supremely talented McDonald fired over a couple of sublime points and threaded a few of his trademark passes through invisible gaps, but he was a voice crying in the wilderness.
All around him, Mayo’s fires were rapidly being extinguished. Ronan McGarrity, who had performed so brilliantly all summer, was ineffectual at midfield, and soon his partner Fergal Kelly was replaced by David Brady. The Mortimer brothers, Conor and Trevor, were virtual bystanders while James Gill was also substituted at halftime. It wasn’t just a bad day at the office; it was like turning up for work and being handed a pink slip.
With the excellent Dara O Cinneide and Cooper picking off the scores, Kerry were 1-12 to 1-4 in front at the changeover. At one stage during the second half, the margin had ballooned out to as much as 12 points before sub Michael Conroy fired in a goal for Mayo. With seven minutes remaining, captain O Cinneide was substituted — O’Connor probably wanted him to polish up his acceptance speech.
“Well, I think it must be the best Kerry performance in the past 20 years,” said Seamus Moynihan, whose injury reduced him to a cameo display in the final quarter. “It was very basic and tight and it worked a treat. Mayo couldn’t cope with the high ball at all, it was alien to them.”
Meanwhile, O’Connor who had the difficult task of taking over from Paidi O Se, was able to reflect of a Kerry treble of National League, Munster championship and All-Ireland titles for the first time since 1997.
“In all honesty, I felt we’d be hard to stop because we realized from training that there was a big performance in the team,” he said. “We just felt that because the Mayo inside forwards are small, maybe their backs wouldn’t be used to the high ball coming in at them at training. So we decided to check it out.”
With that tactic in mind, it wasn’t a great surprise that O’Connor had selected the more physical Crowley ahead of Mike Frank Russell. Dillon’s perfectly taken goal after the Kerry defense for once had failed to deal with a loose ball in no way upset the game plan. After 25 minutes, the winners had surged clear by 0-10 to 1-3, and that margin was further increased when Cooper caught a high ball from Eamon Fitzmaurice ahead of his marker Pat Kelly and set off on a mesmerizing solo that concluded with the coolest of shots past Peter Burke in the Mayo goal.
“I haven’t seen as much natural skill since Maurice Fitzgerald,” Moynihan said. “The dummy he gave just before the goal was incredible. He’s so young and he gave an exhibition.”
The score only confirmed Kerry’s supremacy, yet there was no sign of any letup after the interval as they continued to hunt down the Mayo defense.
“We spoke at halftime about the fact that we were in a great position against Armagh in the 2002 final inside in that same dressing room and it looked like we had Sam Maguire going home” O’Connor said. “We left that one after us, so we were determined to drive on and to keep attacking. That’s the way it panned out.”
Under such relentless pressure, there were times in the second half when Mayo were unrecognizable from the team that had disposed of Galway, Roscommon, Tyrone and Fermanagh earlier in the championship. Starved of good ball, and with their morale dwindling by the minute, the last 20 minutes must have been an excruciating experience.
“Kerry were just the superior team in 14 or 15 positions, probably all 15. When that happens and the game opens up there’s nothing you can do about,” Mayo manager John Maughan said. “Quite clearly we were the ones that underperformed, and never made a contest out of it. I can’t explain why. I could’ve come in at half time and told a lie, but they were the only ones playing football. At that stage for us, it was about damage limitation to a certain extent, trying to maintain a bit of pride in the jersey.”
Trouble was, as Kerry concluded what was effectively an early lap of honor, Mayo couldn’t even show that pride.
Kerry: D. Murphy; T. O’Sullivan, M. McCarthy, A. O’Mahony; T. O Se (0-1), E. Fitzmaurice, M. O Se; E. Brosnan, W. Kirby (0-3); L. Hassett, D O’Sullivan (0-1), P. Galvin (0-1); C. Cooper (1-5, one free), D. O Cinneide (0-8, five frees, one 45), J. Crowley. Subs: S. Moynihan for Hassett, 55 mins.; M.F. Russell (0-1) for Crowley, 58 mins.; R. O’Connor for O. Cinneide, 63 mins.; P. Kelly for Galvin, 68 mins.; B. Guiney for T. O Se, 72 mins.
Mayo: P. Burke; D. Geraghty, D. Heaney, G. Ruane, P. Kelly, J. Nallen, P. Gardiner; R. McGarrity, F. Kelly; B. Maloney (0-1), C. McDonald (0-3, two frees), T. Mortimer; A Dillon (1-2, one free), J. Gill, C. Mortimer (0-1). Subs: D. Brady for F. Kelly, 25 mins.; C. Moran for Geraghty, M. Conroy (1-1) for Gill, both halftime; A. Moran (0-1) for C. Mortimer, 48 mins.; P. Navin for Heaney, 66 mins.

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